There's a story making its rounds across the 'net about a woman who missed several online classes, and failed her semester, and she claims this happened because she bought a Dell laptop with Ubuntu on it - instead of Windows. She didn't know what Ubuntu was, and was surprised to see that her Windows software, such as Microsoft Office, didn't work. While this isolated case sounds a bit ridiculous, there is still a bigger problem here.

Yes, who says the woman knows how Windows works! And I'm sorry to same, but in this day and age, most OS's are pretty similar when it comes to interfaces. All you need to do, is READ THE DAMN SCREEN!

Also you keep stating "don't push your agenda". Well, what are the universities doing! They are pushing their agenda just to make their lives easier!! That is not right and not fair. I had a similar case when I studied at my univ. I did a course in C++. At the time I had a OS/2 machine. Little did I know they were forcing MS Visual C++ on everybody, not just the C++ language! They even graded us on specific features in the MS Visual C++ IDE. Yet, nowhere did they mention that, they just mentioned the C++ language in the course pamphlets.

I fully agree with your statement on open standards though! Promote that rather that a specific OS or software tool.

Yes, who says the woman knows how Windows works! And I'm sorry to same, but in this day and age, most OS's are pretty similar when it comes to interfaces. All you need to do, is READ THE DAMN SCREEN!

You'd be surprised just how many well-educated people are totally unable to get that right. It's like a mental block that lets them freeze in terror as soon as there's an error message on the screen. Or, in the worse cases, if anything goes differently than their memorized "i just push that button, no i don't know what its name is" routine.